It makes for such a great story. The most famous living composer (Salieri), poisons his much more talented and younger rival (Mozart), in part out of jealousy, but mainly because the younger genius has such a sacrilegious attitude toward his extraordinary musical gifts.

The fact that none of it is true hasn't stopped more than two centuries worth of theater, opera, and film speculation. Peter Shaffer's popular 1984 movie "Amadeus" is the most recent case in point.

An earlier, equally fascinating work that explores this musical intrigue, Rimsky-Korsakov's short opera "Mozart and Salieri," comes to life this weekend, staged by the Commonwealth Lyric Theater in the Center Makor at the Temple B'nai Moshe in Brighton.

The Newton-based company has established a solid artistic reputation already, based on the warm reception of its two previous stagings, also rarely heard works: Rachmaninov's "Aleko" (2013) and Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" (2012).

The intrigue surrounding Mozart and Salieri has a vigorous history; in fact, for decades, the music world thought that the story was true. "The sudden death of Mozart, and the untrue rumor that Salieri confessed on his deathbed to poisoning him, kept the story alive," says soprano Olga Lisovskaya, executive director of Commonwealth Lyric Theater. "Pushkin kind of picked up the history, and his ‘Little Tragedy' as he called it, ‘Mozart and Salieri,' magnified the story until it became ‘a known fact.' "

The troupe has enhanced Rimsky-Korsakov's two-scene opera, inserting an intermezzo that adds luster - and lots of Mozart's music - to the performance.

"The first scene and the second have very different moods," Lisovskaya says. "In the first, Mozart is carefree and joyful, and Salieri is brooding - because he's planning the murder. He feels that Mozart is talented and a genius, and has a kind of divinity. But Mozart mocks everything Salieri holds sacred.

"We insert a potpourri of melodies in the intermezzo, to serve a purpose. Arias from ‘Don Giovanni,' ‘Cosi fan tutti,' ‘The Marriage of Figaro.' It complements the opera.

"The opera is Rimsky-Korsakov, and so it has beautiful, melodic music," she says. "It's through-composed, meaning it moves without a break from monologues to dialogues in one smooth flow. This work is orchestrated in a much smaller way than his usual works, which suits a smaller venue and company like ours. And usually the librettist adapts the original work, but in this case Rimsky-Korsakov totally set the music to the words of Pushkin."

Zachary Schwartzman conducts the performance, under the artistic direction of Alexander Prokhorov. Bass Mikhail Svetlov recreates the role of Salieri, which he has previously sung numerous times, including with the Bolshoi Theater. Tenor Mikhail Yanenko sings the role of Mozart. (An alternate cast sings Wednesday's performance, with Prokhorov as Salieri and tenor Jonathan Price singing Mozart.)

Plans are already underway for Commonwealth's next rarity, a production of 19th century Ukrainian composer Semyon Gulak-Artemovsky's "A Zaporozhian (Cossack) Beyond the Danube." "It's well known in the republics," Lisovskaya says, "but difficult to stage. We need a big venue, since it features Ukrainian dancing, which is very gymnastic. But it's a beautiful work, in the bel canto/Romantic tradition, like Wagner or Verdi, but with Ukrainian folk twists."